The invention relates to a subassembly comprising an inflator for a vehicle safety system having a cylindrical outer wall as well as at least one bolt fastened to the outer wall in a substance-to-substance or form-fit manner so as to mount the inflator on a component.
Tubular inflators, as they are used, for example, in passenger airbag modules or in seat-integrated side airbag modules, are usually mounted through threaded bolts radially projecting from the housing shell. It is known, for instance, from the generic DE 20 2004 017 428 U1 to make use of bolts having a small flange at one end which is fastened to the inflator housing by capacitor discharge welding. With the aid of the threaded bolts the inflator is mounted, usually together with the airbag, on the module housing or on a body element.
In the case of activation of the airbag module very high forces can be transmitted to the bolts, more exactly speaking to the connecting points between the bolts and the inflator housing, by deployment of the airbag, the main load being oriented normal to the bolt axes. Providing a robust housing wall to prevent the welded bolts from tear-off contradicts the tendency, however, to design modern inflator housings to have very thin walls so as to save weight and material. There have already been developed solutions according to which thin-walled inflators are mounted to fixed parts by means of clamps, as shown e.g. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,153,273, or by means of through-bolts. Such fastening systems are relatively expensive, however. The same is applicable to the use of massive parts to stabilize the connecting point between the bolts and the inflator housing.